Club Q shooting suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich pleads guilty to 5 murder charges with life sentences
Colorado Springs, Colorado CNN —
The suspect accused of fatally shooting five people and injuring 19 others last year at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado has pleaded guilty to five counts of first-degree murder and agreed to serve five consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole as part of a deal with prosecutors, the defendant told a judge.
Anderson Lee Aldrich, 23, also pleaded guilty Monday morning to 46 counts of attempted murder in the first degree – with 48-year consecutive sentences each – and no-contest to bias-motivated crimes in the November 19 massacre at Club Q in Colorado Springs.
Shortly after Aldrich confirmed the plea deal, survivors began to give victim impact statements as the court moved directly to the sentencing phase.
“Why isn’t the punishment for this much harsher?” Ashley Paugh’s husband, Kurt Paugh, said in court. Her sister described the state of mind of the slain woman’s child – prompting tears in the courtroom.
“My 11-year-old niece wants to forgive you because that’s what she says her mom would want her to do,” Stephanie Clark said to Aldrich.
Aldrich, who identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, was charged with more than 300 state counts, including murder, assault, attempted murder and hate crimes. Prosecutors could not seek the death penalty in the case because Colorado in 2020 abolished the death penalty – becoming the 22nd state to do so.
The massacre at Club Q – long considered a safe haven for the LGBTQ community in a city with a history of being anti-gay – evoked memories of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, which left 49 people dead.
The Club Q victims – Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, Daniel Aston, Derrick Rump and Paugh – were among at least 642 people killed in 2022 in mass shootings with four or more wounded, excluding shooters, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
This year’s pace of slayings is on track to exceed that, with 385 people killed in mass shootings in the first 177 days of this year, the Gun Violence Archive reports.
Mourners created a memorial honoring the five victims killed at Club Q in the days after the shooting. Hyoung Chang/Denver Post/Getty Images
Monday’s hearing in Colorado unfolded as Pride Month culminates amid increasing tension for those in the LGBTQ+ community. For the first time in its four-decade history, America’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer civil rights organization this month declared a national state of emergency, citing “increased homophobia and transphobia.”
Source: CNN
